Jane Brown is the author of several books on eminent gardeners, including GARDENS OF A GOLDEN AFTERNOON (Penguin, 1985), the story of Edwin Luytens’s partnership with Gertrude Jekyll, which has become a much-loved classic all over the world. Her other books have included one on Lutyens and the Edwardians, and the gardening biographies of Vita Sackville-West, Lanning Roper and the American landscape gardener Beatrix Farrand. Her seminal work, THE PURSUIT OF PARADISE: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF GARDENS AND GARDENING was published by HarperCollins in 1999 to great critical acclaim. THE MODERNIST GARDEN was published by Thames and Hudson, and SPIRITS OF PLACE was published by Penguin in May 2001. Jane Brown has pulled up her Hampshire/Surrey roots and transplanted herself to Northamptonshire. TALES OF THE ROSE TREE (Harpercollins) was published in April 2005 and MY DARLING HERIOTT, from HarperCollins, published in 2006.
The Guardian said of MY DARLING HERIOTT: ‘Brown has unearthed a wonderful character who has until now existed only in the margins of garden history. With great verve, she places Henrietta at the centre of the genesis of the picturesque garden movement.’
Books in order of publication:
Gardens of a Golden Afternoon (Penguin, 1985)
Lanning Roper & His Garden – 1987
Vita’s Other World: A Gardening Biography of Vita Sackville-West – 1988
Art & Architecture of The English Garden – 1989
Eminent Gardeners: Some People of Influence and Their Gardens, 1880-1980 – 1991
Beatrix: The Gardening Life of Beatrix Jones Farrand 1872-1959 – 1995
Lutyens and the Edwardians: An English Architect and His Clients – 1996
Sissinghurst: Portrait of a Garden – 1998
The Pursuit of Paradise: A Social History of Gardens and Gardening – 1999
English Garden Through the Twentieth Century – 1999
Spirits of Place: Five Famous Lives in Their Landscape – 2001
The Garden at Buckingham Palace: An Illustrated History – 2004
Tales of the Rose Tree: Ravishing Rhododendrons and Their Travels Around the World – 2006
My Darling Heriott: Henrietta Luxborough, Poetic Gardener And Irrepressible Exile – 2006
A Garden and Three Houses: The Story of Architect Peter Aldington’s Garden and Three Village Houses – 2010
The Omnipotent Magician: Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown: 1716-1783 – 2011
Angel Dorothy: How an American Progressive Came to Devon – 2017
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